Double Cross

that ran across the highway. Made sense to Hayneswiggle.

The people riding along below him had to be wondering what some guy in a droopy Richard Nixon mask was doing up there all by himself. And if they did wonder, they were only half right.

It was a Nixon mask, but he wasn’t alone. David Haynes- wiggle had plenty of company.

The third story had begun, and it was a doozy-very imaginative, high profile, dramatic as hell.

Another terrific role to play too. The accountant with nothing to live for, nothing to lose. Huge chip on his shoulder. Payback time long overdue for this guy.

An eighteen-year-old high-school boy lay motionless on the cement at his feet. The poor lad was dead, his throat slit and already bled out. The boy just couldn’t get it in his head to cooperate and do as he was told. Next to him, a teenage girl sat with her back against a wall that also hid her from view of the cars passing below.

The girl was still alive. One of her small hands was in her lap; the other hung limply overhead, where she was cuffed to the bridge’s railing. A line of sweat beads showed on her upper lip, just above the duct tape that was wrapped all the way around her mouth and head.

David Hayneswiggle looked down at the girl, who was all bug-eyed and shaking like an addict. “How you doing? You still with me?” he asked.

She either ignored him or didn’t hear what he’d said. It doesn’t matter what the girl thinks, or how she acts, David Hayneswiggle thought to himself. Once again, he watched the traffic down below on the George Washington, gauging for speed and distance, and just the right moment. The third story was going to be something else.

Whenever some total jackass honked at him, he held up the double peace sign. “I am not a crook,” he said in his best croaky Nixon voice. He identified so much with Nixon, another loser with a chip on his shoulder.

When he had seen enough, had memorized the scene for future reference, he knelt down next to the girl. She scrambled, moving away maybe a foot, all that she could manage on account of the handcuffs attached to the railing.

“Save your strength,” he said. “You’re safe, right? As long as you’re cuffed to the rail. Think about it. Everything is cool.”

He squiggled his arms under the boy’s body, then strained to get himself into a half-kneeling position. The kid couldn’t have been more than 150 pounds, but it seemed like a ton. Deadweight, no joke.

David Hayneswiggle flexed his leg muscles, keeping them ready as he eyed the highway from a squatting position. He saw his target. A white Toyota minivan had come into view about a quarter mile away. There were no trucks allowed on the parkway, so a Hummer, or something like the minivan, was as big as he was going to find. The van stuck to its lane, possibly hemmed in by other cars.

He scootched over to the right a bit, lining himself up as best he could.

When the van was about a hundred yards off, he secured his grip on the boy.

At fifty yards, he rose. In one powerful motion, he came to his full height. And then he chucked the body over the rail, watching it tumble like a heavy sack. It hit the minivan’s hood and windshield with a smash of glass, followed by a fast squealing of tires. Holy shit!

The van swerved and skidded underneath the narrow bridge and back out the other side-then it tipped over. Steel groaned against concrete, and two more crashes sounded from behind the minivan as other daydreaming drivers failed to stop in time.

Traffic was backed up almost instantly.

The northbound parkway would soon be the northbound parking lot; southbound cars would be stopped too, as the rubbernecking set in.

He had their attention now.

Finally someone was noticing David Hayneswiggle.

Hell, it was about time.

Chapter 43

DAVID HAYNESWIGGLE addressed the girl now, and he had to speak loudly over the thrum of traffic still headed south on the parkway. He actually had to shout to be heard. “Ready? Are you ready? Hey, I’m talking to you. Don’t act like I’m not here!”

The girl’s boot heels scraped concrete as she tried to get farther away from him-from this madman who had already killed her boyfriend. The handcuff on her wrist cut deeply into her skin, but the pain didn’t seem to matter. She was focused only on getting away from the weirdo in the Richard Nixon mask, that being him.

She was pretty enough, in a suburban-cheerleader kind of way. Lydia Ramirez, according to her driver’s permit. Seventeen years old, but he took no pity on her. Adolescents were the most wretched humans of all. “Okay, now don’t move. I’ll be right back for you. Hold that deer-in-the-headlights look.”

Hayneswiggle stood up again and checked out the scene below. The audience was assembled, and they seemed impatient for the show to continue. The highway was complete chaos now. Northbound traffic was already backed up along the Potomac.

The tipped van at the head of the line ensured that nearly all the stopped cars were on the south side of the walkway, facing him. A smashed Volvo directly below let out a hissing cloud of steam. A few of the onlookers were yelling up at him, but he couldn’t tell what the hell they were saying. Probably just pissed because they’d been inconvenienced. Well, screw them.

“Can’t hear you!” he shouted back. And that reminded him.

He picked something up from the sidewalk, one of the items he had brought with him for the show-a twenty- five-watt bullhorn with about a thousand-yard range.

He pointed it at the crowd. A few of the jackasses down there ducked.

“I’m baaa-acck!” he announced. “Did you miss me? Of course you did.”

Several motorists who weren’t already out of their cars got out now. A woman with a bloody forehead looked up at him in a daze.

“And you thought this was going to be an ordinary day, didn’t you? Guess again, folks. Today is real special, one you’ll never forget. You’ll tell your grandchildren-that is, if this messed-up world of ours lasts that long. Hey, speaking of the world lasting, how many of you voted for Al Gore?”

He set down the bullhorn and took something out of his pocket, something that glared in the sunlight. Then he hunched over the girl, shielding her from view. A moment later, he stood again-with the girl in his arms.

“Here she is! Let’s hear it for our little star, Lydia Ramirez.” Then, smiling broadly, he casually flipped her over the edge of the overpass. Just like that, like nothing.

The girl’s legs and feet flew up into the air ahead of the rest of her. Then a metallic ringing sang out as the handcuff spun on the rail and caught hold. The audience gasped.

The girl crashed back against the bridge, her feet dangling directly over the highway.

“Fake out!” David Hayneswiggle said into the bullhorn. “Look closely now. At her, please. Not at me. I told you, she’s our star today. Pretend I’m not even here. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Look at her!”

As the audience stared, a dark curved line appeared on the girl’s exposed throat. Then it became a sheet of red that ran down her neck and over her T-shirt. The people down below were finally beginning to realize what had happened-her throat had been cut.

Then she was still, other than the slightest rhythmic sway of her body.

“Okay, she’s gone. Show’s over. For today, anyway. Thank you all for coming. Thank you so much. Drive safely.”

People started honking their horns, and there was angry screaming. A police siren finally sounded from some-where, but it was far off, unable to get through the backed-up traffic.